6.5/10 STARS - This is one I'm glad I didn't see the trailer for because I think I would have been annoyed/disappointed by the final product. From what I understand, the trailer touted this as the "scariest movie you'll see all year" or something like that. This was decidedly NOT scary. Not in a horror-genre way, that is. There are real-life situations depicted that are scary because they can and do happen, but somehow that doesn't really have the same feel to it when it comes to the "scary" one thinks about when they think of horror movies. This is in many ways a slowly unfolding mystery. And by slowly, I mean slowwwwly. Presence is not very long - it clocks in at around an hour and twenty-something minutes - but it could have probably been more effective/intense as a short story, less than an hour long. I say this because it took close to an hour before I felt the hook of intense interest. Not that I WASN'T interested or didn't enjoy what I'd been watching up until that point, but I wasn't getting the feeling of having much of an emotional connection with what I was watching and/or caring much about the characters up until then. The turning point for me came when a twisty element was revealed and then I was SUPER curious to see how things played out. When the end came (about twenty to twenty-five minutes later), it almost felt anti-climactic. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because it wrapped very quickly after events unfolded in the final moments. I have a burning question about actions The Presence did or did not take that I won't ask here, but overall I did enjoy it. I appreciated the mystery aspect to it and the unique twist on the whole poltergeist/ghost elements. Video review to come shortly.
